Nurses at Brigham and Women’s Hospital rejected the hospital’s contract offer during voting that unfolded Thursday and Friday. The nurses union requested that contract negotiations resume in the coming week, while the hospital said it’s ready to maintain care for patients if there’s a strike.
A hospital spokeswoman said the rejected offer, which had been described as its “last, best and final” offer, featured “meaningful compensation and benefit enhancements that kept Brigham nursing pay among the highest in the market.”
“Although we are disappointed by the outcome, our priority and focus remain on providing safe, high-quality patient care,” hospital spokeswoman Jessica Pastore said in a statement. “Brigham and Women’s Hospital is prepared to maintain uninterrupted care and respond to any steps the union may take.”
In a message to “colleagues” Friday night, the Brigham’s chief nursing officer Julia Mason wrote: “We recognize that you may have questions about what comes next. This outcome does not necessarily mean there will be a strike; the union’s bargaining committee will now determine its next steps.”
The Massachusetts Nurses Association said the BWH MNA Bargaining Committee, representing more than 4,000 Brigham nurses, wants to “resume the process for securing a fair contract that meets the needs of the nurses, their patients, and the community members they serve and who have rallied with nurses throughout this fight.”
“A foundational principle of our union is that every nurse’s voice matters,” said Kelly Morgan, a labor and delivery nurse and chair of the BWH MNA Bargaining Committee. “This vote shows the resolve of Brigham nurses, who are fighting for patient safety and for the professional respect we deserve.”
As part of its reaction to the union vote, the hospital said that its offer provided “all nurses with increases to their base pay, either through new top steps for all scales (totaling 5% over the two years) or through the existing step scale (totaling 10% over the two years).”
A hospital spokeswoman was not immediately available Saturday to respond to the request for a resumption of contract talks; a nurses union spokesman said the union had not yet heard back from the hospital on its request and declined to release the vote tally that led to the rejection of the contract offer.
Nearly 4,000 Brigham nurses were slated to go on strike on Wednesday, Oct. 14, but collective bargaining talks resumed on Saturday, Oct. 10, and the MNA announced that evening that it would postpone the strike and allow nurses to vote on the “final offer.” The nurses walked off the job in July, a one-day strike that turned into a five-day work stoppage as the hospital brought on temporary travel nurses to maintain continuity of care.